Trick of the Light im-3

by David Ashton

  ‘No,’ replied McLevy, re-ordering his eyes for better vision. ‘And whit does he mean by comfort?’

  They scanned further.

  Let that be so. When death is on our trail, we ride that poor horse so hard to escape that it would shake loose the bridle and saddle to run wild and free, to separate from us.

  It is not the target. We are.

  Let that be so.

  I give you two names.

  Gilbert and Walter Morrison. These are men I am forced to now have dealings with and I do not trust them.

  I have lost all my agents in the field except Bartholomew, who leaves this very afternoon on a cargo ship with some important papers for Secretary Mallory and will carry this letter along with him.

  It will join my earlier communication, which is still in his possession because we have been unable to find a safe ship for him to travel in. It will have to be a roundabout route because traffic between here and the Southern states is now more and more difficult. This is a rare chance for him to make the journey.

  He will have to land in Union territory and make his way by horse to the South.

  With luck he will deliver both letters to you at the same time. In your hands.

  Two, as they say, for the price of one.

  I have had no response from you to my previous letters nor would I expect such. I do not know if you have even received them. Let us hope so.

  I must wait till midnight.

  I have already been persuaded to hand over the cash bonds in order to guarantee delivery of two blockade ships and will receive the final papers this night.

  I have warned the Morrisons that should they fail me I will have no compunction but to shoot them dead.

  There are three bullets left in John Findhorn’s revolver. That should be enough.

  This cannot sound to your ears like a gallant Southern officer but I am not so gallant these days.

  I fear betrayal. Judas. But I must go on.

  I have no option.

  As a shadow has no option but to follow the body to which it is attached.

  If I succeed I shall follow Bartholomew as soon as possible.

  If I do not win through then it means that I have fallen. I will not be coming after.

  I have fallen. I have fallen.

  Please forgive me.

  Your husband,

  Jonathen

  McLevy pondered. Something in the letter did not ring true. Something not expressed. Hidden. A secret.

  ‘It’s very sad,’ said Ballantyne.

  ‘It’s the cause of homicide,’ replied McLevy. ‘Let us depart this murderous sanctuary.’

  He grabbed the other missives, closed the empty box, and stuffed them into the recesses of the poacher’s pocket in his coat to smuggle past any watchers.

  These he would examine later at his leisure.

  But for now he had an appointment to keep.

  40

  Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

  THE BIBLE, Romans

  As the hansom cab clattered to a halt outside the Tanfield Hall, McLevy handed the bound letters to Ballantyne.

  ‘You carry on towards the station,’ he commanded. ‘Put them in a safe place.’

  ‘In the records office, naebody ever gangs there,’ Ballantyne said, looking at the crowds outside flocking in through the doors. ‘But whit do I tell the lieutenant?’

  ‘What I have instructed you.’

  ‘It’s no’ exactly the truth.’

  ‘It’s near enough.’

  He gave Ballantyne some money for the cab, knowing well the remuneration of a constable did not extend to such sums, waved goodbye to the worried face, took a deep breath and joined the throng.

  ‘Aye. Turn your face from the rightful path, walk the way of Satan!’

  Jupiter Carlisle’s distorted visage thrust itself into McLevy’s, while those around him scattered to avoid blanket condemnation. The placard held in his hand like a holy sword still read, This is against God!

  The inspector was unimpressed; he had moved the man on many a time when his vituperation threatened to get out of control. This might be one of them but McLevy had too much on his plate as it was.

  ‘Aye, Jupiter,’ he acknowledged. ‘Halloween’s over. I thought you’d be having a rest. Now, behave yourself.’

  The man’s pale blue eyes burned with fierce indignation and he raised the placard as if to strike the infidel where he stood, but McLevy shoved past because he could hear a bell ringing inside the hall to announce that proceedings were about to begin.

  Jupiter, white hair gleaming in the streetlights, called after McLevy and anyone else within range who had not yet lost their soul, a slight speck of froth at the edge of his thin lips indicating a man at the end of his Christian tether.

  ‘Where is your shame? You should be on your knees in church not crawling on your belly like a snake to feast upon this woman.’

  For a moment his zealous gaze met with Sophia Adler’s, as her image on one of the posters to advertise the venue swam into his view.

  ‘Whore of Babylon!’ he howled at her. ‘The Lord will smite you down! You will not escape his wrath!’

  To this somewhat apocalyptic statement she made no response; the last straggle of crowd had disappeared inside and Jupiter cut a pathetic figure as he stood there like an Old Testament prophet whose flock had gone astray.

  Meanwhile the inspector collected his ticket inside an envelope with his name written in full, James McLevy, Inspector of Police, and a handwritten note inside that said, I always keep my promises.

  He thought about the varied meanings of these words as he searched for his place, finding it to be an excellent vantage in the centre of the stalls.

  As he pushed his way in towards the empty seat in the row, he saw that it was set beside a giant of a man who sat with his eyes fixed on the empty stage.

  Arthur Conan Doyle.

  Either Sophia had arranged this or the Fates were at work. Take your pick.

  Doyle, who was on his own, his mother Mary considering that she had had a surfeit of the spirits for the moment, gazed at McLevy with slightly bulging eyes as if the inspector might trail some more murderous events after him.

  ‘I have been out of the city all day,’ he said.

  ‘Where?’ grunted McLevy, as he sat down heavily.

  ‘A fishing trip.’

  ‘Fishing?’ The inspector had wondered about Doyle’s whereabouts; a note had been sent requesting his presence at the station but to no avail.

  So that was the reason.

  ‘Fishing?’ he repeated.

  ‘I needed to calm my mind.’

  Indeed, Doyle had awoken with a welter of confused thoughts, grabbed his angling rod and spent an unsuccessful day attempting to lure a trout onto the fly.

  It had eased his perturbation but reading some lurid headlines in the newspapers on his late afternoon return had set it off again.

  ‘How is Miss Adler?’ he asked, turning his eyes back to the empty stage. ‘I tried to contact her at the hotel on my arrival back but she was not available. Hiding from the press, no doubt.’

  ‘She has much to conceal.’

  ‘It is a dreadful business.’

  ‘And not over yet,’ said McLevy bleakly.

  While they were talking he had been scanning the audience. Unless he was mistaken he glimpsed Jean Brash and Hannah Semple further back in the hall, no doubt celebrating Jean’s release while investigating the possibility of establishing a bawdy-hoose beyond the grave.

  And was that not Lieutenant Roach ducking his head down, Mrs Roach beside him like a hungry chick waiting to be fed?

  It would seem most of the players in this drama had gathered and McLevy wondered about the outcome.

  He had retained the one letter from Sinclair, which rested in his pocket, naming the Morrison brothers.

  But what did he hope to accomplish? Show it to Sophia and extract a confession of sorts?

>   Certainly it gave link and motive to her part in murder but provided no real proof.

  He could just hear Roach’s voice.

  Circumstantial, McLevy. It will not hold.

  Especially when you considered how he came by the letters.

  He had risked a great deal and gained what?

  He might hammer in at Sophia but would she crack?

  McLevy became aware that Conan Doyle was gazing at him with a perplexed look upon his face.

  ‘Did you not hear what I said, sir?’ Arthur queried.

  ‘I did not. Miles away.’

  ‘I asked what you implied by not over yet. Surely the ghastly business has run its course?’

  ‘No,’ said McLevy. ‘Miss Adler has yet a part to play.’

  ‘In what fashion?’

  There was a pugilistic set to Doyle’s face, suddenly, as if he suspected McLevy of dark designs towards his sweet Sophia, and the inspector sighed.

  ‘Has she not suffered enough?’ declared the young man, and as McLevy thought best how to answer he was saved from what would undoubtedly have been an extremely fraught exchange of differing points of view by the stage lights dimming and an earnest member of the Edinburgh Spiritualist Society stepping forth.

  In halting, dry tones, the man welcomed them, spoke briefly of the tenets of the Society’s beliefs, made no mention of the unfortunate fate of Magnus Bannerman, spoke the name of Sophia Adler as one summoning up a presence from the deep, and then quit the stage.

  She walked on. Veiled as usual, bride of the spirits, a circlet of silver round her head, arms bare, wearing a flowing dress, pale grey in colour.

  The large honey candles were already in place and lit, the chair in position.

  She sat. Silence. A held breath. Waiting.

  For Sophia it was as if she was fixed in eternity. No audience, no outside trappings, completely held within her own being as she floated in the air, in darkness, her eyes closed, a nothingness, a void where the seeds of everything were held in suspension.

  She waited for her father’s voice. To bless her.

  And in the silence, a voice sounded.

  ‘Whore of Babylon!’

  A scream of hatred from a mind that had festered for long years, nurtured on the image of a nailed Redeemer and no longer able to separate his own agony from that of the crucified Nazarene.

  Jupiter Carlisle burst into the hall past the feeble efforts of the gatemen; in place of the discarded placard he held an ancient pistol, dusty and rust-clogged that he had stumbled on that very morning, a remnant of hunting days when he was a young man and had his own wits.

  His eyes were rheumy and badly impaired so he saw only a dim wavering image of grey on the stage, aimed the pistol wildly in that direction and pressed the trigger.

  It was a miracle the gun did not explode, the barrel blocked with dust and dead insects, but it fired.

  And the bullet could have gone anywhere, hit anyone in front of that pistol.

  Even James McLevy.

  Yet it somehow found a path straight into the heart of Sophia Adler as she waited for a blessing.

  On the impact she slumped forward and fell slowly to the side as she had done once before, but this time there was no steadying hand from Magnus Bannerman.

  This time she toppled straight to the floor and lay there. Unmoving. Unblessed. Alone.

  With a muttered curse McLevy was out of his seat and trampling over the legs and feet of others as he struggled to get to the lunatic figure of Carlisle.

  Screams and shouts rang out from the audience. Roach was also moving with surprising speed out of his row down towards the frail, deadly figure holding a gun that by all known science should have blown up in his hand.

  As Carlisle waved the pistol round in a threatening arc, McLevy thudded in and brought the deranged man to the floor. As he hauled out the restrainers a hand pulled them from his grasp.

  ‘I’ll see to this,’ said Roach grimly. ‘You deal with the woman. She has the more need.’

  McLevy ran for the stage and scrambled up onto the bare boards. Conan Doyle had already got there in one leap and leant over the still form of Sophia. The inspector was about to push the young man aside when he remembered that he was in fact a doctor.

  Doyle by now had ripped a portion of the dress away to reveal the wound in her pale flesh.

  One look in the man’s eyes and McLevy had his own dark suspicions confirmed.

  It was a death wound.

  Deid strake.

  Both men inclined over the veiled figure from either side and McLevy gently eased off the silver circlet to reveal the wan face below.

  ‘You are late, inspector,’ she murmured. ‘I thought better of you.’

  ‘I am here now,’ he replied.

  She signalled him close while Doyle tried in vain to stem a wound that would never cease.

  ‘You should have kissed me,’ she whispered, the ghost of a smile on her lips.

  ‘Too risky,’ McLevy muttered.

  She laughed and the convulsion brought some blood up into her mouth.

  The inspector was reminded that this was the second young woman he had watched die in a few days.

  A bad habit.

  Her eyes were focused on something over his shoulder.

  ‘A black shape,’ she said.

  The inspector glanced upwards. He could see nothing.

  ‘It was terrible luck,’ he said. ‘Jupiter couldnae hit a barn door.

  ‘Jupiter?’

  ‘That’s his name.’

  She smiled, then a look of pain came into her eyes.

  ‘Not luck. Just…fate.’

  He hesitated, she being on the point of death; but once a policeman, always so. He spoke quietly.

  ‘Is there aught upon your conscience, Miss Sinclair?’

  Sophia registered his deliberate use of the name but made no more of it.

  ‘Should there be?’

  ‘As regards, say, the murder of Gilbert Morrison?’

  ‘He deserved it.’

  ‘What did you do to Magnus Bannerman?’

  ‘Whispered in his ear.’

  With that she turned away to Conan Doyle who had heard nothing of their talk, being concerned to stanch the flow of blood even though he knew his efforts to be in vain.

  Sophia reached up a hand to touch his face; Doyle held back his tears in the approved manly fashion, but his lip trembled and his eyes showed the feeling in his heart.

  Perhaps a chivalric delusion.

  Perhaps the love of his life.

  Take your pick.

  ‘You are a good man, Mister Doyle,’ she said quietly. ‘You must always…be on guard.’

  He bent his great head over her hand and kissed it with his lips in the manner of a gallant knight.

  She closed her eyes and saw a vision of her father riding over the hill, ready to sweep her up in his arms.

  ‘You are a good man,’ she said.

  Then she died.

  Slipped from one world to another. Or Heaven. Or Hell. Or nowhere. Depending upon the point of view.

  Doyle took her pulse as a medical man should, then laid the veil softly once more over her white face.

  McLevy stood up. The members of the Spiritualist Society had restrained the audience from crowding round the stage and the shouts and screams had become low murmurs.

  Then strangely, as if a hand had been laid across them, they stilled the noise and the place once more fell silent.

  All eyes were upon him.

  The inspector stood like an actor who has forgotten his lines.

  His mind was full of thoughts he could not share.

  Was it just bad luck or had the spirits taken revenge for the misuse of power?

  McLevy would never know.

  He bowed his head to signal death and the whole audience followed suit.

  One voice broke that terrible silence. It came from a man face down on the floor, hands cuffed behind his back.

>   Jupiter Carlisle chanted to himself in a cracked harsh croak, like a frog in the night.

  ‘The Lord anoints. The Lord provides. He will weigh you in the balance. The Lord provides. The Lord anoints.’

  41

  Times go by turns, and chances change by course,

  From foul to fair, from better hap to worse.

  ROBERT SOUTHWELL, ‘Times Go by Turns’

  When McLevy entered the station next day, the first person to meet his eyes was Muriel Grierson.

  In truth so much had happened in the interim that he almost did not recognise the woman. Also she had somewhat changed in appearance and attitude.

  Her eyes gazed at him with level strength as opposed to their usual bird-like distraction, and she was dressed in a style more befitting to her age.

  As if she had come to terms with something.

  As if she meant business.

  She was sitting on the little bench at the station desk, ignored by Sergeant Murdoch, who was laboriously filling out some official forms, and seemed content to be there, hands quiet and still upon her lap.

  ‘Can I assist you, Mistress Grierson?’ asked James McLevy.

  ‘No. I am being dealt with, thank you.’

  She did not rise or particularly acknowledge him and so he went on his merry way. One problem less to solve.

  Ballantyne looked up from his desk and shook his head warningly; was it the inspector’s imagination or did that birthmark seem not so livid this morning?

  In any case for a moment he was reminded of Mulholland, who often shook his head in similar manner, and wondered how the constable was faring. He was missing the reservations that Mulholland often brought to bear on their activities.

  But on to present times. McLevy took a deep breath and rapped upon the object of Ballantyne’s caution and his own reckoning-to-be.

  The door of Lieutenant Robert Roach.

  ‘Enter,’ said a voice within, and that he did.

  Ballantyne pondered a little at his desk; the insects could fend for themselves this moment.

  He had already been hauled over the coals by his lieutenant for unauthorised entry of a hotel room and given a severe flea in his ear as regards being party to any such events in the future. To his relief he was not going to be taken off the patrolling but partnered with a more sober, older constable to guide his wayward footsteps.